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DR. CHANNING'S NOTE-BOOK 

PASSAGES FROM THE UNPUBLISHED 

MANUSCRIPTS OF WILLIAM 

ELLERY CHANNING 



SELECTED BY HIS GRANDDAUGHTER 

GRACE ELLERY CHANNING 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
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Copyright, 1887, 
Br GRACE ELLERY CHANNING. 

All rights reserved. 

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The Riverside Press, Cambridge: 
Electrotyped and printed by H. 0. Houghton & Co. 



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In adding this little volume to the published 
j r< works of William Ellery Channing, a special in- 
terest is claimed for it from its origin and char- 
acter. 

The " Notes " are from the unpublished manu- 
scripts left by him} and set apart for this pur- 
pose by his nephew and biographer, William 
Henry Channing, and by his son. They have 
been gathered with careful study, and are here 
reproduced, without change or revision of any 
kind. Many of them bear internal evidence of 
this in their abrupt construction. So far has 
the desire to preserve their integrity been carried 
that it is only justice to the publishers to exoner- 
ate them from all responsibility for incomplete 
sentences or idiomatic use of words. 

What is possibly lost in elegance is more than 
compensated in vigor and freedom of expression. 
Written for personal and immediate reference, the 
papers have the absolute unrestraint of self-com- 
munion ; yet we feel that in giving them to the 
world no injustice is done to the writer. He 
loses nothing through this nearer acquaintance. 

It was Dr. Channing's habit to make notes at 
all times, to jot down the train of thought sug- 
gested by the books he was reading, as well as 
his own solitary musings. Often words or phrases 



from other writers are set down with the ideas 
they suggest ; and sometimes it has been difficult 
to disentangle the two. The most faithful care 
has been employed to reject such passages. 
Should any have escaped, the fault must be at- 
tributed to the compiler. 

Many thoughts will be recognized as familiar ; 
the form, however, is believed to be new, and we 
think, as a book distinctly not theological in char- 
acter, it presents another and broader view of 
Channing himself. 

The selections which close the volume, begin- 
ning with " Sensation," are from the chapters of 
his unfinished work on Man, which was designed 
to be the crowning labor of his life. Nearly half 
a century has elapsed since these pages were 
penned, and it will not be strange if no great or 
striking novelty is found, at the present day, in 
the philosophy they embody ; but they show most 
fully the spiritual thought which was so far in 
advance of his own time, and emphasize anew 
the special characteristics of Channing's mind 
and faith. Therefore, as well as for their beauty, 
they are included in this volume. 

To those here and across the water whose lives 
are bound up with all movements for freedom, 
this little book, as a voice for individual liberty, 
will carry its own special welcome ; and to the 
friends of Channing everywhere it is offered. 

Grace Ellery Channing. 



CONTENTS. 



Freedom 7 

Man 9 

Society — the State 13 

Slavery 23 

War 24 

Self-Culture 25 

Fellowship 29 

Influence 32 

Progress 34 

Charity — Benevolence 36 

Character — Energy 37 

Friendship 39 

Love 43 

Virtue 50 

Pride 51 

Humility 52 

Flattery 53 

Fear 54 

Duty 55 

Evil — Sin 56 

Conscience 57 

Faith 59 

Wisdom — Knowledge 61 

Truth 62 

Inspiration 64 

Thought— Reason 64 



6 CONTENTS. 

Conversation 67 

Woman 71 

Children — Education 72 

Manner 75 

Habit 77 

Art — Gendjs — Ideals 77 

Life 80 

Death 81 

Peace 82 

Joy — Happiness 83 

Sorrow — Pain ....... 86 

Destiny 87 

Matter — Spirit 87 

The Soul 88 

Aspiration — Prayer 91 

God — Keligion ....... 93 

Sensation 99 

The I or Self 103 

Perception 104 

Reflection 106 

Conception 108 

Relation 108 

Memory 109 



DR. CHANNING'S NOTE-BOOK. 



Freedom. 

Freedom is not merely a means. It is an 
end. It is the well-being of a rational nature. 
To take it away is to violate the essential law 
and aspiration of that nature. 

If there be one interest dear to me on earth, 
it is the freedom of the human mind. If I have 
found my existence a growing good, — if I have 
gained any large views of religion or my own 
nature, — if I have in any measure invigorated, 
I know nothing to which, under God, I am so in- 
debted as to my freedom. This has been breath 
of life to me. 

The abuses of freedom are better than chains, 
for they are self-corrective. Man should always 
feel himself too great to be a slave. 

Forego everything, rather than invest another 
with the power of determining your actions, or 
transfer to him the empire which belongs only to 
our own minds. 



8 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

Each man being a law to himself, he cannot 
be a slave to others. 

Worlds should not tempt me to bend my mind 
to the yoke which Christians here bear. I owe 
too much to intellectual liberty. If I have made 
any progress, — here the spring. 

Civil liberty is not enough. There may be a 
tyranny of the multitude, of opinion, over the 
individual. He is free who is most encouraged 
to consult his highest nature and to act from it. 
Popularity enslaves. We want no limits to the 
range of the human mind. 

How many have fought for civil liberty with 
not a glimpse of true freedom ! 

I let the bird go whose songs I desire, because 
the life and joy of liberty are his element and 
true good. 

In so doing I set free every slave, — I wish 
for each being his true element and good. 

The necessities of nature leave us no liberty. 
How we act on traditional rules, maxims, cus- 
toms ! How few think for themselves ! How 
many depend for light ! 

Liberty is not an animal license. 



MAN. 



Man. 



I am never to lose the consciousness of my own 
importance as an intellectual and moral being. 
Whoever respects it is my friend. I deserve this 
respect. 

Neglect, contempt, indifference, are all im- 
proper towards such a being as Man. 

How far are men kept in wickedness by being 
taught that it is their natural state ! 

Must not all ambition die when we see "the 
Divine likeness in all souls ? Before this, slavery 
and war fall. 

The misery of mankind is not this or that ca- 
lamity, but ignorance of the true resources from 
all calamity. 

In injuring a man the injury is not measured 
by the pain inflicted, but by the being injured. 

Man, if he make virtue his chief end, can turn 
all things into means. 

The gift of reason and consciousness make a 
being who is to govern himself : — he is only to be 



10 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

restrained when he would injure others. He has 
a great destiny which he only can fulfil. 

Every human being has a right to all the 
means of improvement which society can afford. 

Obstinacy comes sometimes from a half-view 
of human dignity, and then it is better than 
pliancy. 

Do we not feel a man to be great just in pro- 
portion as he forms himself, — retreats into him- 
self for guidance and adheres to what his own 
soul pronounces to be right and good ? 

Man is at once a social and a religious being. 
Religion cannot flourish without charity, nor the 
reverse. Man is a mutilated being when destitute 
of either sentiment. 

He who searches himself with the distinct con- 
viction that he is a being framed and gifted for 
universal love will join the deepest humility to 
the most unbounded aspirings. 

Every man cannot do everything for himself. 
He must be helped. But the end of being helped 
is that he may act more energetically. The man 
who is always receiving aids, instead of confer- 
ring them, is a poor creature. 



MAN. 11 

A man was not made merely to enjoy, — the 
higher end is character. A condition making 
him merry, but degrading him, is the worst. It 
is well that degradation should bring misery. 

Every soul is great — unspeakably so. 

Man's nature is now divided. Body wars 
against soul. A new reverence for the body is 
needed, — such as will protect it from foreign 
violence. 

Show masks a nature meant for greatness. 

There is no feeling of obligation to accomplish 
the purposes of human nature. 

Man cannot control outward nature, — he can 
do more, he can rise above it. In all changes he 
can hold his steadfast course. He can adhere to 
the great and good, though opposed by the uni- 
verse. 

The lowest, most ignorant, man is to be treated 
with respect. Not because we are worthless, but 
because we are so noble. Our own development 
of powers should only awaken a livelier concern 
towards those in whom the Divine ray slumbers. 

Man everywhere fights against man. The at- 



12 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

tempt to eclipse another is an act of hostility. — 
Love has infinite obstacles. 

To give a generous hope to man of his own 
nature, is to enrich him immeasurably. 

I am not to ask or expect God to determine 
my mind. That is my proper work. 

Learn to view earthly distinctions as trifling. 
See in every rank, Mast. 

The great man among the great will show less 
than a far inferior man among the little. 

Men are sinful just as they are foolish, and 
good just as they are wise, — i. e., very mixed 
in both respects. 

Avoid undue severity. Call a man a harder 
name than he merits, and you so far confirm him 
in error and create sympathy with him. 

What have you lost ? Everything essentially 
precious is left you, for your own nature is left 
you. Had a calamity fallen on you which had 
robbed you of the attributes of reason, or annihi- 
lated the principle of duty, or the Idea of God, or 
the capacity of pure love, — then you would have 
incurred an infinite loss. Over such a calamity, 
no weeping would be excessive, but the misfor- 
tunes of the day — what have they taken ? 



SOCIETY— THE STATE. 13 

Associate man with God. Plead for him as 
he has never been pleaded for before. 



Society — the State. 

I owe so much to my country that I cannot, 
ought not, to be indifferent to its interests. 

Republicanism does not know itself. It is 
highest spiritualism. It is the rejection of all 
outward distinction. It honors man as man. 

The people have a right to be well governed. 
They have a right to judge whether they are, — 
and, if convinced they are not, they have a right 
to change the government. 

A bad sovereign makes an unhappy country. 
Does this rule change when the people are sov- 
ereign ? Can the people govern any farther than 
they are enlightened and self governed? The 
people swayed by demagogues do not rule. 

Despotism is a cure for parties. Shut up 
men's mouths and minds, and all will agree, but 
who wishes thus to banish party spirit ? In free 
governments we shall have variety of thoughts, 
views. The free mind is still a blessing. 

It is the distinction of a statesman from a 



14 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

politician that he sees, comprehends and seizes 
on the enduring, the stable, the eternal, — that 
low temporary interests do not hide the everlast- 
ing. 

Nothing but sympathy with society will lead 
to its cure. Hence those who are raised above 
the mass can do little. 

No man has a claim to office but on grounds 
of spiritual distinction. 

Man's right to his productive power is higher, 
more universal than all others. 

Every individual has a right to vote, as each 
has an interest in government and is an end of 
government. This interest is expressed by his 
individual action in the government. 

How we fold up ourselves in our comforts and 
respectablenesses ! How little we dream what 
surrounds us ! 

The suppression of the multitude by force is 
not order. It is rebellion kept down* 

We lead self -contradictory lives, — admit ideas 
of justice, but do not apply them, declaim against 
degrading labors, but avail ourselves of them. 



SOCIETY— THE STATE. 15 

Wealth worship must cease. 

Employments degrading to others are crimes. 
No man has a right to grow rich, employing 
people in ways which brutalize them. 

Why should property be taken care of by gov- 
ernment, rather than other things ? Why not 
science, arts, virtue ? 

What does it indicate that we pass suffering 
in the streets without noticing it, — see human 
misery, destitution, degradation, and not heed it ? 

Society is a war of force for the protection of 
individuals. What has this war achieved, what 
murder, oppression ! 

Is it safe to accumulate physical force in any 
hands ? 

It is of no importance that there should be a 
rich man in the community, but of great impor- 
tance that there should not be a poor one. Afflu- 
ence does good to none. Pauperism does evil to 
all. 

To elevate employments, remove debasing cir- 
cumstances, is a great duty. Let every being 
have means and aids to improvement. 

That others may be better for serving us 
should be our end. 



16 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

How near must a person live to me to be my 
neighbor ? Every person is near to you whom 
you can bless. He is nearest whom you can 
bless most. 

Men are toiling perpetually for ease. They 
ask for a social order which will give them secu- 
rity. They try to fence off the evils of life by 
their gains, their social connections, their social 
ranks. Let time flow easily. Let unpleasant 
questions be turned aside. Let nothing disturb 
them. This paradise of comfort and ease they 
sigh for. — But such is not the purpose of God. 

When we look at the influential, the respect- 
able, have we any ground of hope ! 

The present state of society is the creature of 
low, earthy minds. All sympathy with it then is 
perilous. The factitious, conventional, fashion- 
able tone is essentially low. The whole era is 
tainted. 

Life, when a drudgery for subsistence, seems 
to fall below the existence of animals ; who 
sport, — take free range. 

The people must not serve as pedestal for a 
great man. 

What right have we to anything for ourselves, 
which would do greater good to others ? 



SOCIETY— THE STATE. 17 

The whole tendency of the present state of 
things is to self-indulgence, — and this is a deadly- 
atmosphere. He who would do good must not 
live in it. 

Strange, with such a founder, example, as 
Washington, we so want faith in moral govern- 
ment. 

Only a few of the laboring class can rise, for 
it is by them that any one rises. 

All true society is the acting of one spirit on 
another, the communication of the activity of one 
soul to another. 

The man living to amuse himself, who con- 
tributes nothing to the general movement, should 
be counted false to his trust, — to his race. 

All vice is forging chains for a country. You, 
men of pleasure, are bowing us to a master. 

In the present state of society must not the 
noblest be despised ? 

Is it right to make a display of wealth by 
which the poor are humbled in their own eyes, 
and by which their ideas of the happiness of 
higher conditions are perverted ? 



18 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

Nothing is so injurious as for a man to form 
himself on a state of society which he is called to 
reform. 

How much of social intercourse consists of ef- 
forts to maintain one another's self complacency! 

Our social nature should keep pace with the 
intellectual. To lose the power of communication 
by our solitary studies is very injurious. 

The use of credit is that a man to get it must 
fulfil his contracts. It is a stimulus to fidelity. 

I am no leveller. I have no favors to gather of 
the poor. I would accept no office they can give 
me. I ask no votes. I hold the doctrine of 
equality only on the ground of the capacity of 
souls. I have learned it not from demagogues, 
but from divine sages : a man who labors is fit 
for any society. 

Of what avail good laws if men of property 
alone can use them, — if justice is too dear for the 
poor! 

j The idea of a whole, and general good, leads 
to what has done infinite mischief, — to the merg- 
ing of the individual in a mass. This is infi- 
nitely corrupt. 



SOCIETY— THE STATE. 19 

To extinguish the moral life in a fellow crea- 
ture is the greatest sin, — far greater than mur- 
der. 

The unhappy man, reduced to dependence on 
alms, finds his lot a burden, and temptation too 
hard for common virtue, — whilst he who is 
threatened with indigence is powerfully drawn to 
seek refuge in crime. 

It is murder to kill a man, but not to let him 
starve, and if, when starving, he steals, he may be 
justly punished ! 

Is not law sustained by personal reverence? 
It is as well that the few, as the many, should 
I rule, if both have the spirit of ruling. 

Past powers are seized on by selfishness and 
sensuality. The energies spent for wealth would 
ennoble individuals and society. 

We were made for something nobler than to 
get money. We do infinite dishonor to our minds 
and life to suppose that we have no higher work 
than to amass dust. 

A high end in the community is an impulse 
which individuals can hardly withstand. What- 
ever the community demands will be done. 



20 BE. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

Were men in a brotherly spirit to join their 
forces for one another's defence, the forces of out- 
ward nature would harm them little. Universal 
justice and love would change the earth, with all 
its storms and droughts, into paradise* 

Man's selfishness is more withering than 
drought, his passions more desolating than floods, 
his excesses more deadly than disease. 

Our business is not to find fault with the world 
discontentedly. It is the world in which God 
has placed us, — therefore the best for us, and we 
should apply ourselves to the work of reforming 
it cheerfully, joyfully. 

Ideas, passively received from abroad, do little 
good. Is not this the hardship of the multitude 
— that the spring within is not touched ? 

We cannot eradicate humanity. We are never 
to think the link severed which binds us to all. 
To feel its power when weakened, — to be drawn 
to others in whom humanity is obscured, — this 
is glorious ! 

We keep one another down, when our only aim 
should be to lift up one another. 

Sentiment does more than force. 



SOCIETY— THE STATE. 21 

In our attempts to conciliate the world we lose 
all our energy. 

He is the pleasing companion who gives activity 
to other minds. 

In respecting one right we are learning to re- 
spect all. 

Hard work is for many a sterner despot than 
an absolute king. 

Wealth is power over others. Ought not this, 
like all power, to be limited ? 

We melt whole multitudes into one mass, — call 
them a country, — England, — etc., and hate and 
fight them. Ought we not to dissolve all these, 
to see people as human beings ? 

This association into nations, — is it to endure 
forever ? 

You owe your leisure to the man who works. 
Then study for him. You are his debtor. You 
owe your mind to him — then use your mind for 
him — give it. This is the great duty. 

No man, I hold it, has a right to improve him- 
self for himself only. He improves through the 
laborers who have transmitted ancient knowledge. 
We need different classes — but each for all ! 



22 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

We should help others to discover truth. To 
hide power through love, to teach without hum- 
bling, — this is beautiful. How little the right 
of our brothers is respected ! How much op- 
pressing of the spirit to which we ought to give 
freedom ! 

It is a sign of infancy when only a few beings 
interest us. 

The more undoubted a person's rank is, the 
more easily he can condescend ; for no one can 
form the idea of his being on a level with inferiors 
whom he notices. Hence there is little real con- 
descension ! 

Is any class of men to be so honored as those 
who espouse the cause of the most friendless, and 
who can gain nothing but reproach, — who make 
no compromise with opinion ? 

I have seen men whose whole souls seemed 
smothered by the idea of property. When they 
saw another man, the first idea seemed to be, how 
much is he worth? 

All the magnificence of a nature shrinks before 
property. 

It is sometimes easier to give than to be just. 
Giving implies superiority. Equity acknowledges 
another's claims as rights. 



SLAVERY. 23 



Slavery. 

A man comprehends a human being. I would 
no more think of owning him than of owning 
earth or Heaven. 

We must strike at the root of slavery, — un- 
consciousness of the dignity of the human being. 

Slavery is a branch of the general contempt of 
human nature, and goes to increase it. Never 
will Man be honored till every chain is broken ! 
What must he think of his race who sees its 
members made brutes ? 

Ought not men to feel deeply for great evils — 
Would anything but thunder wake up men ? 

A condition under which a human being is 
kept from progress is infinitely wrong. The 
slave cannot be so viewed as to impose respect — 
the humanity cannot come out to the master. 
He may be a pet or an animal, but not a man. 

I cannot have a right to make a being the in- 
strument of my enjoyment who has a right to 
seek his own. 

The desire of progress is the vital principle of 



24 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

human nature. Slavery is death to hope. It 
has no future. That human beings can be gay 
under such a lot shows the death of the soul. 

Suppose men were too debased for freedom. 
They are bound to be free, — bound to rise from 
their debasement. 

No man has a right to sell himself forever. — 
There can be no equivalent. Certain rights are 
inalienable. 

The advantage of freedom is that we may be 
ourselves, not bear the stamp of another ; and 
this is implied, that the individual will be a higher 
and happier being than if formed by any one. 



War. 

"What is a declaration of war but a devotion of 
two countries to every evil which power and 
passion can inflict ! 

In war our gain is our brother's loss, — our 
success his misery. When we triumph, he mourns. 
A benevolent mind must weep amidst success. 

That human beings should deliberately destroy 
one another and call this glory ! 



SELF-CULTURE. 25 

Shall man desolate God's works ? Disciples of 
the prince of peace, — shall we destroy one 
another ! 

Self-Culture. 

Greatness is inward sovereignty. He who is 
not shaped by innumerable influences, — but 
bends them all to the ends of the moral nature, — 
he is great. 

Self-reverence is not reverence of what we are, 
but of that higher nature, which reproves and 
condemns and abases us. 

There is in us that which is greater than we 
can be, — which is not personal but universal. 

Do we not rise to a love of ourselves, such as 
is utterly unknown to a selfish man, — such as 
we experience towards an excellent friend ? We 
become our own friends. He that is dazzled by 
outward things probably has not learned himself. 

A spirit of self-sacrifice, — a willingness to lay 
down life itself, — not a spirit of self-torture, — 
but the power of love overcoming ease, pleasure. 

We have to expect suffering when we oppose 
the world. Let this not discourage. 



26 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

I am to give myself, not to be carried by storm, 
— not to be driven or drawn by others in a man- 
ner implying the diminution of my own activity. 

Self-government and self-sacrifice are one. 

He does not understand self-sacrifice who does 
not desire to conceal it. 

Is there no danger of our self-control degen- 
erating into tyranny ? A man may lay severe 
rules on himself as truly as another may. 

It is exclusive, not excessive, love of self which 
makes the difficulty. 

Have we no reason to fear when we make a 
man happy by processes promoting our own in- 
terests ? 

It is kindly appointed that in becoming selfish 
we become miserable. 

We desire love that we may be sustained in 
our own good opinion, — for self -flattery. How 
much injury we receive from those who love us 
without a moral basis ! 

In wishing people to devote themselves to our 
enjoyment, we call them to a low work. — We 



SELF-CULTURE. 27 

should wish them to propose a higher object, — 
a divine good, — that which is universal. 

To diminish the influence of pain and pleasure 
over the will, to be able in the presence of both 
to choose the right with our whole energy of 
soul — this is noble and to be sought. 

Each man has his own modes of viewing and 
expressing things. These are worth all others. 

Some through sloth, fear, or self-indulgence, 
put themselves into the power of others, — give 
up the will ; — this is base. The surrender of 
the will is virtuous only when virtue is the end. 
We ought to decide and resolve on the fullest de- 
velopment of our nature. To give up ourselves 
to others to be guided, controlled, and so forth, 
is to betray our trust. We are to learn from oth- 
ers what is well and good, when they are better 
instructed ; but so far as our own powers will 
serve us, we should use them. 

The man who is ready at every moment to 
sacrifice all to duty and bear the cross, — he is 
crucified to the world, at the moment of possess- 
ing and enjoying it. 

The danger is that people will not see with 
their own eyes, — speak with their own lips. 



28 



DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 



The passion for belonging to a mass is strong 
in us all. 

Individual life, — energy, — that favors coop- 
eration as nothing else can. 

Independence, — not a proud, unkind scorn of 
men, — but a moral independence, — should be 
our aim : — and for this we should contract our 
wants, resign desirable situations, so as to avoid 
the need of sacrificing ourselves to another's rule. 
We must give no man rule. 

A man should make nothing for himself only. 

A mind, rapt, absorbed in God and other be- 
ings, so as to forget itself, never to recur to it- 
self, hardly seems sane. 



Nothing injures more than a feeling of inabil- 



ity. 



There is nothing trifling : — people are tri- 
fling. I know no trifling amusements. I know 
many trifling people. It is not the amusements 
which are trifling, but they who give their minds 
to them, who suffer a round of amusements to fill 
life and the mind. 

True sport is but a change of activity. 



FELLOWSHIP. 29 

Is not the mind to be made strong by exposure ? 
Must it be housed, nursed, kept within limits? 
May it not be trusted amidst all kinds of opinions ? 
Let it associate with the wise as friends, but, like 
Jesus, dine with sinners. 

The use of books, travels, etc., is to free us from 
the bondage of the near present and pressing — 
to break old restraints. 

We are all able to know what is essential, but 
not to know that we do not make essential what 
is not. 

Fellowship. 

We want such views of humanity as shall 
shake the soul to its centre. Not a fierce, but 
tender, as well as burning love. Even indigna- 
tion should have a tone of deep sorrow. In 
Jesus was there not a perpetual sweetness ? He 
passed from indignation to greatest tenderness. 
His lament for Jerusalem closed his denuncia- 
tions. 

It is true that every soul has its own war- 
fare to go through, but still we may help one 
another. 

A feeling of constraint is a sign that we are 



30 DR. CEANNING'S NOTE-BOOK. 

not in a congenial atmosphere. — Wherever we 
cannot open our souls freely we are hurt. 

We must feel that we never receive so much 
as when we impart, for what we give comes hack 
richer, more precious. We throw into spiritual 
circulation what will flow again through our own 
souls. 

Not a heing should pass through my mind 
without moving some love, good wishes, prayers 
— without some union with him. Let this be 
the case when rivals or enemies enter. 

Censoriousness is repulsive — men are won, 
not so much by being blamed, as by being en- 
compassed with love. 

Dying spirits are around us. How much more 
affecting than dying bodies ! 

The question is, what can be done by all-con- 
suming desire to do good, — by the action of in- 
tense absorbing love to our fellow-creatures ? — 
can they stand before it ? 

Whoever considers himself as having any claim 
on God above others fatally errs. 

None can enjoy God's favor but by believing 
that he has no favorite. 



. FELLOWSHIP. 31 

To live with the world, and know the worst of 
it, — and yet hope and strive for its improve- 
ment, — taking courage from God, — how much 
nobler than to dream of the millennium in our 
closets ! 

Take men not from the world, but from the 
evil in it. We are not to keep distant from the 
worst. God is always with evil. 

When I meet a being whom I cannot serve I 
know my ignorance. 

There is a mode of existence, thought, belong- 
ing to this earth. Should we gain by anticipating 
our future state ? We do not want the child to 
be a man. 

Ought the man to be an angel ? 

How great the crime that prevents the body 
from becoming the powerful minister and ex- 
pression of the mind, — that dims the brightness 
of the eye so that it ceases to pierce men's souls, 
— that takes away the vigor of thought by indul- 
gence ! 

Mutual dependence supposes strength in each 
part on which the other may lean. 

When men become, as they call it, independent 



32 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

in condition, they become more dependent upon 
opinion. 

We all lean on one arm. 



Influence. 

No man is to be a copy of another — even of 
the best. 

Outward things act upon us not so much ac- 
cording to their own natures as according to our 
own. 

Must we be swayed wholly from abroad ? We 
are told what to say, to think, to do. Cannot a 
man move and grow from within ? 

Every human being whom we approach should 
be the better for us. 

Men sometimes work themselves into a fever 
because they see others highly wrought. The zeal 
of imitation is very common. 

Excitements which draw men together in 
masses, and increase their power over each other, 
are of doubtful character. 



INFLUENCE. 33 

You ask what are your vices to me ? I answer, 
much. I am a man acted on by other men. I 
am influenced by all around. There is one hu- 
man heart. There is no neutrality in the war- 
fare going on between Heaven and hell — virtue 
and vice. 

Men do not listen to a man who fears them, 
who is not above them, on whom they act. 
They must feel him acting on them. 

Human censure, scorn, acts on us precisely in 
proportion to the importance we attach to human 
judgment. 

We, ourselves, give to others' contempt its chief 
sting. 

Human nature recoils from force. It cannot 
be driven. You can do no good to him who 
counts you his enemy. 

Do we not judge most justly of people when 
we seem not to judge at all — when we receive 
impressions from the whole character — when 
there is an influence from the joint looks, acts, 
and manner ? 

How unlovely the aspect of what is called re- 
ligion and reform! How genial, attractive, is 
deep love ! They who would spread it must 



34 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

cherish it, must fill the soul with it as with an 
ocean. 

The hope of doing good to a beloved being, of 
acting nobly on a noble spirit, should be a great 
motive. 

A lovely spirit does spread. 

When a vital, celestial influence comes to me 
from a mind which lived ages ago, — what a 
proof of the unity and connection of the spiritual 
universe ! 

Is will ever so impressive as when still ? A 
passionate will may bend. 



Progress, 

We need not be what we were yesterday. 

Onward is the word ! To rest in any improve- 
ments is to lose them. No firm tread but by go- 
ing on. 

On no subject am I to stop as if it were ex- 
hausted. 

All human greatness is but a pledge of human 
progress. Admiration assures it to us if we are 
but faithful. 



PROGRESS. 35 

Self-imitation is not growth, and the beauty 
and fervor of sentiments wither by an exact rep- 
etition. 

There may be progress from love of motion, 
which amounts to little. Progress, to be noble, 
must have a noble Idea. 

The primitive right of a being is to improve 
his condition. To keep him where he is, is an 
invasion of his highest right. 

The power we possess is the seed of all we 
are to possess. The unbounded energy of virtue 
hereafter is at once a fruit and recompense of 
our efforts here. 

So to work that we shall unfold ourselves and 
grow to greater sacrifices, loves, hopes, and joys 
— this is the Perfect for us. 

We must forget what is behind. If we cease 
to originate we are lost. We can only keep what 
we have, by new activity. 

To see clearly, to get out of the mist ! 

We cannot comprehend what is to be unfold- 
ed by the culture of Love, Virtue, Piety. The 
Heaven in them passeth knowledge. 



36 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

Charity — Benevolence. 

We are creatures of sympathy. We catch 
each other's feelings. 

Dependence on sympathy may be as dangerous 
as pecuniary dependence. 

Much of our sympathy is weakness ! We 
shrink ourselves from pain, and we place our- 
selves in the condition of the suffering, — and 
then overflow with compassion. 

It is the mark of a superior mind that it can 
see the grounds or germs of its own superiority in 
all, — can see what is noblest in itself universally 
diffused, — can see signs, promises, which escape 
others' eyes. 

Benevolence when habitual becomes a cordial, 
cheerful glow of the soul, lighting up the coun- 
tenance, delighting in all expression of good. 

Relief of suffering is the best office man can 
perform. Should not this lead us to acquaint 
ourselves with the miserable ? 

Benevolence finds an infinite object in the 
universe. It is conscious of deficiency. It 



CHARACTER -ENERGY. 37 

struggles for diffusion and goes wider and wider 
forth. 

There is no depth of guilt or misery to which 
charity will not descend, — no form of humanity 
so loathsome with which it will not ally itself. It 
acknowledges kindred with everything human, 
it is attracted by woe, — may I say, by sin. 



Character — Energy. 

What grandeur may lodge in a small form if 
it express purpose ! — The eagle in the clouds. 

To us, fastened to the earth and bound to 
it in proportion to our weakness, — soaring is 
power. 

Force of purpose — concentrating the mind 
on a noble work — sacrifices to this, — have we 
not here the elements of all greatness ? 

Force belongs to a calm confidence in truth, — 
in its majesty and power. 

Nothing is to be done without boldness and 
strength. 

What we want is a strong, positive character. 



38 DR. CRANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

A man should be felt. He always is, when he 
has a self-subsistent energy. 

The true force of character leaves other people 
at ease, — has no intimidation in it. It is im- 
movable, but does not wish to move others, except 
through truth and lofty motives. 

Character is recognized after all as the great 
thing. When a man dies and all his accidents 
have fallen off, we enquire what he was. 

The greatest boldness ought to appear in our 
measures, that we may redeem gentleness from 
the imputation of fear. The blustering have 
least courage. 

Nothing which is done for a man constitutes 
his worth, — but what he does, — his own energy. 

The capacity of awakening activity in other 
minds is godlike — is worth all others. Of this 
we need to be conscious. 

Explorers of truth have been ever active. 
Plato, Bacon, have they done nothing ? 

A man is to act for higher activity. Every- 
thing at war with activity is to be resisted, — 
then sensuality especially. Also over activity I 






FRIENDSHIP. 39 

Merely to bring out a thought for pleasure is a 
low end, — for self-praise, still lower. 

The great power is in action ; — this converts, 
quickens, is life-giving. 



Friendship. 

A friend is he who sets his heart upon us, 
is happy in us, and delights in us, — does for us 
what we want, is willing and fully engaged to do 
all he can for us, on whom we can rely in all 
cases. 

A friend gives himself to his beloved, and the 
higher his excellence, the richer the gift. 

Friendship imposes no yoke on its object, has 
not the feelings of a patron, expects no compli- 
ance with its opinions, no sacrifices of personal 
independence, — but is jealous for the rights, dig- 
nity, arid moral independence of its object, and 
takes pleasure in the free judgment and elevated 
spirit of a friend, only expecting these to be tem- 
pered with kindness. 

It confers favor, but so as to show that it is the 
party obliged, and never thinking of any recom- 
pense beyond the happiness of its object. 

Our friends must regard us as called and bound 



40 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

to look first to the law within, and to follow this 
in utter disregard to their wishes. We should 
want friends to incite us to be victims to human- 
ity, to be more than their friends. 

True friends have no solitary joy or sorrow. 

The attempt to make one false impression on 
the mind of a friend respecting ourselves is of 
the nature of perfidy. 

Sincerity should be observed most scrupulously. 

It is one of the wretchednesses of the great 
that they have no approved friends. Kings are 
the most solitary beings on earth. 

True friendship, founded on moral qualities, is 
utterly inconsistent with a partial, exclusive, un- 
social attachment to a few. I do not love my 
friend unless I am sensible to his excellences 
when manifested in others, and unless I am at- 
tached to the cause of universal virtue. 

Is mutual service the bond of friendship ? 

A beloved friend does not fill one part of the 
soul, but, penetrating the whole, becomes con- 
nected with all feeling. 

The loss of a friend who loved us as another 



FRIENDSHIP. 41 

self, on whom our hearts moved and lived, is the 
greatest of losses. 

How far is love of the beautiful and lovely in 
others the great means of growth ? Friendship 
how far the quickening principle ? 

We receive other souls into our own. Love 
assimilates, appropriates. 

Sympathy how nourishing ! 

Friends should not be chosen to flatter. The 
quality we should prize is that rectitude which 
will shrink from no truth. Intimacies, which in- 
crease vanity, destroy friendship. 

Friends are to incite one another to God's 
works. 

Sincerity, truth, faithfulness, come into the very 
essence of friendship. 

A true friend will appear such in leaving us to 
act according to our intimate conviction, — will 
cherish this nobleness of sentiment, will never 
wish to substitute his power for our own. 

It is essential to friendship that there be no 
labor to pass for more than we are, no effort, no 
anxiety to hide ! If anything be concealed the 
constant intercourse of friends will discover it, 



42 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

and one discovery will produce others. The idea 
that the heart has one secret fold extinguishes 
affection. 

No discovery of defect in a character essen- 
tially good can so damp friendship as the sus- 
picion that something is kept back. 

Friendship heightens all our affections. We 
receive all the ardor of our friend in addition to 
our own. The communication of minds gives to 
each the fervor of each. 

We desire the homage of an exclusive friend- 
ship. We would have others render us the most 
refined service, that of love. We would be pre- 
ferred, which to some is better than praise. 

When our friends die, in proportion as we loved 
them, we die with them, — we go with them. 
We are not wholly of the earth. 

Other blessings may be taken away, but if we 
have acquired a good friend by goodness, we have 
a blessing which improves in value when others 
fail. It is even heightened by sufferings. 

To be only an admirer is not to be a friend of 
a human being. Human nature wants something 
more, and our perceptions are diseased when we 



LOVE. 43 

dress up a human being in the attributes of di- 
vinity. He is our friend who loves, more than 
admires us, and would aid us in our great work. 

A true friend embraces our objects as his own. 
We feel another mind bent on the same end, 
enjoying it, ensuring it, reflecting it, and delight- 
ing in our devotion to it. 

We cannot enjoy a friend here. If we are to 
meet it is beyond the grave. 

How much of our soul a friend takes with him ! 
We half die in him. 

We grow by love. It is said, why live for 
others ? But others are our nutriment. 

Our affections are our life. We live by these. 
They supply our warmth. 



Love. 

Man's glory consists very much in his capacity 
of being God's image — which is love. 

Nothing is more awful than love. Nothing 
provokes less undue familiarity. 

Love is not giving ourselves away. We are 
too great to be given away. 



44 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

Love is the end of commandment. 

Love is the true principle of immortality. 

Love is not weak. Its true form is power. 
Wisdom is its meet associate. 

True love is the parent of a noble humility. 

True love is prudent. — It is not wild, visionary, 
for human happiness is too dear and sacred to be 
made the subject of rash experiment. 

Nothing is so free from passion as love, — for 
it is large, wide, and far-looking. 

It is the essence of love to be willing to suffer, 
— to rejoice in our suffering for others. Hence 
it is energy, courage, hardihood. It is not tame 
and faint and weak. 

A strong love, seizing an object firmly, ardently, 
discovering the means to it, is not easily discour- 
aged, — is conscious of a power treasured up in its 
own fervor, — is keen-eyed to discern opportu- 
nities. Oh, what can it not achieve ! 

He who loves so far serves. 

Judiciousness, prudence, expediency, — are 
words for selfish caution and distrust of principle. 
Love disclaims these, and so is wise. 






LOVE. 45 

Selfishness may make a compromise with self- 
ishness, but love never. 

A narrow love is not the true love. We have 
not penetrated to the Divine in man. 

Where is the fire of love which consumes all 
selfishness ! 

Love in the young mind is an aspiration after 
Infinite Beauty. How the imagination spreads 
over the object an inexpressible charm ! 

Is not perfect love perfect happiness ? Is not 
love Heaven ? 

Love is the life of the soul. It is the harmony 
of the Universe. 

Is life found in union, and that union love ? 

We have passed from death to life. 

Is death a separation — life an organization ? 

Can we love those whom we undervalue? 
Esteem and love go together. 

Individual affection always favors the freedom 
of its object. It loves him as an individual. It 
does not wish to break down his peculiarities, — 
to make him conform to itself. 



46 DR. CHANNING'S NOTE-BOOK. 

If love is faith in the divine capacities, then 
the great work is to bring them out. 

Love absorbing the whole nature would de- 
stroy itself. Its office is to expand the whole 
nature. 

Is not the soul a germ of love ? 

Are we not to account that love the truest 
which respects our freedom, which lays no chain 
upon it, which encourages it, which leaves us free 
to act from our own minds ? 

Is not a spirit of adventure connected with 
true love ? This naturally generates hope, for it 
is one with God. It has no selfish anxiety or 
dread. It cannot suffer. It desires to accom- 
plish great good. It is not rash, but feels in its 
own promptings a divine impulse. It adventures 
and sacrifices more freely than any other prin- 
ciple. 

To love infinitely is an infinite blessing. 

Nor are we ever to feel that our love is worth 
little, if we love uprightly, justly, nobly. A vir- 
tuous attachment to another is to ourselves and 
that other a great thing. 



LOVE. 47 

If we desire a partial exclusive love, — we are 
then personal, partial, selfish. 

Should we wish to be the objects of any love 
but what exalts the lover ? 

True love has a character of confidence, bold- 
ness, freedom in social intercourse. Having no 
private aims, it is frank. Having no selfish fear 
of opinion, it does justice to its convictions. In 
escaping from self we escape from embarrassment. 

Love — a deep interest in another being. — 
What a charm there is in it, inexpressible, inde- 
finable. It is the light of life. 

Love lies deeper than emotion. Emotion is 
but an accident. 

We are happy not in proportion to what we 
possess, but to the affection which surrounds us. 
Love from a beloved being is a kind of Heaven. 

What an impulse is love, — how spiritual, and 
of how mighty influence ! 

The loving heart looks into the mystery of na- 
ture. Life is love. To love is to live. 

They who fly from love to be devout, are they 
not extinguishing piety ! 



48 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

We lavish affection on a few. Do we know 
what all should excite ? 

We ought to ]ive as among spirits. 

In loving all we do not love a mass, but a 
multitude of individuals. 

Love is the parent of thought. 

Will he love much who sees in our nature little 
capacity of excellence and happiness ? Will not 
love sink as man is degraded ? 

In hating vice we must love virtue. Hatred 
must be a form of Love. 

Love is the remedy for anger. 

True love delights in all who possess it, and 
counts their success its own. 

Courage enters into love, for love looks beyond 
those private interests which awaken fear. 

To expose and sacrifice ourselves for private 
aims brings no consolation. How much comes 
from the sacrifices of love ! 

Love seeks to render objects worthy of esteem. 
It is a thought for the spirit's life. — Here the 
mystery. 



LOVE. 49 

The being who by an attachment lives in our 
minds imprints himself there more or less. 

Love is the all-conquering power, and to con- 
quer evil by good is its chief end and constant 
work on earth. 

We show our love to our friends in vindicating 
their high character. 

A soul full of love and charity, moved by hu- 
man misery, will think less and less of private 
comfort. 

Love alone gives dignity to self-sacrifice. 

We desire to be loved without inquiring into 
our right to love. — We desire it selfishly. Is 
there not an instinctive desire of affection as 
food? 

True love is an active love, not passive, not 
excited in us irresistibly by another, not making 
us submissive. We must consent to it, approve 
it, throw our souls into it. The impulse must 
be from within. 

Gratitude does not say, "I have received so 
much good, I must repay it." The idea of corn- 
measured obligation does not enter it. It would 



50 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

pay more. It can set no limit to itself. It does 
not think of requiting the gift, but the spirit. It 
sees in kindness a summons to kindness. It owes 
the heart. 

Virtue. 

Virtue is chainless. Nothing can bind it. Its 
essence is to withstand all. 

We cannot be virtuous by yesterday's virtue 
any more than live by yesterday's life. 

A faithful man wishes all right to be done by 
all men. His own virtue is not dearer than 
others'. 

It is virtue which makes us at peace with our- 
selves, and this is essential to happiness. We do 
succeed in flying from ourselves. We can, in a 
sense, lose ourselves in crowds, in business, in 
pleasures. But after all we must sometimes come 
home. We must sometimes be left to ourselves. 

Ah, what a shadow is praise ! How imperish- 
able is virtue ! Shall I then live to draw praise 
or awaken virtue ? 

Virtue is looking above ourselves, but selfishness 
uses it as a means of self-concentration. 



PRIDE. 51 

Virtue is the soul's own. 

It is not another's. 

It is the only true property of the mind. 

We admire the man of genius who describes a 
virtue, — how much more he who manifests it ! 
The sculptor gives the saint, — how much more 
admirable the saint ! 

A good being attracts good will to him. He 
really knows how to use happiness, prosperity, 
the means and power of usefulness. He may be 
trusted with blessings. 

Virtue is fearless. It belongs to the untrod- 
den. It cannot see far into futurity. — It trusts. 
— It carries its presage in itself. 

Who has learned perfection his end has lifted 
his soul to celestial virtue. 



Pride. 

Pride is the greatest meanness. The man has 
never seen, comprehended the great. 

A supreme pride lays polluting hands on every- 
thing to build itself up. 



52 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK, 

When we become great in our own eyes, others 
become small. 

Our nearness to ourselves deceives ; the near 
becomes great. We are to comprehend the great- 
ness of the distant. 

We can more readily believe that we are wrong 
than hear our neighbor tell us so. 

Almost every man finds something on which 
to build a feeling of self importance — compla- 
cency. — He looks around for something illus- 
trious with which to connect himself. 

Pride as well as love aspires after great, signal 
sacrifices. 

Humility. 

The just estimate of ourselves at the moment 
of triumph is the most eminent renunciation of 
pride. 

The humility which comes from studying our 
own defects is in danger of abjectness. True 
humility is forgetfulness of self, in the sense of 
the great, the Divine. The soul is humbled by 
its loftiness. 



FLATTERY. 58 

Not an idea of duty but teaches humility, — not 
a view of nature — for it surpasses comprehen- 
sion. What so strange as pride ! 

Humility is clear vision. It is removal of the 
great film which prevents sight. 

Humiliation implies power, for all sin is a 
neglect or abuse of power. It is suffering divine 
power to be quenched in us. Power measures 
sin, and all pretence is abject and false any 
further than founded in consciousness of a great 
power. 

The greater a man is, the less he is disposed 
to show his greatness. True nobility of soul rises 
above and suppresses the love of show. 

As we value sincerity we should keep ourselves 
out of sight, — doing good without pride or ego- 
tism. 

Flattery. 

We are bound to approach men by noblest 
faculties. — No flattery, no soothing, wheedling, 
etc. 

There is a softness which dishonors people, as 
if they could not bear plain dealing. 



54 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

Do not minister to self-consciousness. True 
friendship never flatters, denies itself, fears to 
corrupt. 

Love pours itself, but never flatters. It needs 
no verbal utterances, — a look is enough. Be 
not another's looking-glass. 

We should look on people who give and receive 
flattery as giving and receiving poison, — destroy- 
ing one another. 

Sudden esteem ought not to be desired. 
Should we not be willing to wait to be known ? 

Vanity, — a pleasing consciousness of what is 
in one's self, — desirous to impart itself to others. 



Fear. 

No timidity. The mind is to rise above this. 
The least fear palsies. 

Let the mind be fixed on too high objects to be 
disturbed by inconveniences. 

Fear makes a man a slave to others. This is 
the tyrant's chain. Anxiety is a form of cow- 
ardice embittering life. 

The mind subdued by terror is not fitted for 
self-direction. 



DUTY. 55 

He who carries one fear of man with him 
carries a weight on his soul. He cannot rise to 
the height of his subject. 



Duty. 

People should see that we expect much from 
them. We should in nothing let down the law 
of duty. — But this should be done not rigidly, 
sternly, unfeelingly. It should be an expression 
of our respect for their nature, and should tend to 
awaken self respect. 

The choice of easy duties — how perilous ! 

To live in violation of a duty we might know 
is akin to the guilt of living in opposition to a 
known duty. 

What may be right for me to-day may be wrong 
for me to-morrow. Some new impression, knowl- 
edge, power, may entirely vary my duty. No 
other is the judge. 

What have we to do with the goods or evils of 
life when an infinitely great interest is at stake ! 

We cannot judge what we can accomplish till 
the world is given up. Every passion subtracts 
from our power. 



56 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

Ambition, how it weakens us ! Fear of man, 
how it palsies ! 



Evil — Sin. 

We are sometimes angry with ourselves for 
sin, — passionately so. Remorse is often the 
work of irritated self-love. How different from 
humility ! 

Impulse is called nature, but an impulse un- 
bridled wastes nature. 

One bad passion taints the soul. 

Vice has a ludicrous as well as an odious as- 
pect. Benevolent satire is sometimes the best 
means of correcting it. 

Is this the solemn view of sin, — that in violat- 
ing one right we violate all right, — that in ex- 
alting the personal over the Right in one instance 
we do it in all, and become a discord in the Uni- 
verse ? 

To escape present suffering, we incur future 
ruin. 

We stay the tottering building to make a great 
crash. 






CONSCIENCE. 57 

If anything degrades a man it is passion, rage. 
He who being insulted loses self-possession insults 
himself more. 

All vice is limitation. It is absorption of the 
soul in the narrow. 

Who suffers most from sin ? The sinner him- 
self ; — one would think then that sin would be 
most hated for his sake. 

Every vice has its mode of treatment. — The 
healing art for the soul has yet to be learned. 

Sensuality is the grave of the soul. 

A tyrant on a throne is not so degrading as a 
private tyrant, whom our luxuries, or wants, or 
interest have made our master. 

The science of mind removes Satan. 

Avarice is foresight wasted, — a noble power 
abused, the very power which ought to secure 
Heaven. 

Conscience. 

I am to live listening to the voice in my own 
soul, and to no other but as sanctioned by this. 



58 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

He who adopts conscience, the opening law, 
as his guide, breaks all other laws both of thought 
and action. Prejudice is renounced. Unbound- 
ed truth is his aim. 

We cannot chain our future selves. — This is 
well. We might obstruct growth, fix permanent- 
ly our present weaknesses or narrow views. But 
in following present conscience as conscience, we 
are doing much towards determining our minds 
to future following of it. The true loftiness is a 
feeling that there is a divinity within us, — a law 
superior to outward authority, — a self directing, 
according to the voice of God within. 

My conscience is a rule to myself only. — My 
will has no province but my own mind. I am re- 
sponsible for no others. I may desire others' vir- 
tue, but must not interfere with their freedom. 
Each is to act from his own inward law, — each 
to be turned on his own soul. 

I owe to myself what I owe to no other. The 
care which I take of my own mind would be usur- 
pation if extended to another. 

A languor of the moral nature is most to be 
feared. 

Conscience is an incommunicable gift. I am a 
law to myself only. — It were better for a man to 



FAITH. 59 

do a wrong act in obeying his own conscience, 
than a right one in obeying mine. 

We have no right to be at ease, if conscience 
is not a friend. 

It is more important to me to preserve an un- 
blemished conscience than to compass any object, 
be it ever so great. 

Can there be a great thought without self-sac- 
rifice and childlike subjection to the divine law 
within ? 

Are we ever to say inertly — we fail in our du- 
ties ? Should not this be a stinging thought ? 

The dying of conscience is the departing of 
God from us. 

I have a right to judge — then a right to be 
protected in judging. 



Faith. 

Faith is love taking the form of aspiration. 

Can we trust for happiness any further than 
we trust that we shall use well our nature ? 



60 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK, 

Faith rests on every promise of God, however 
imparted, — directly, or by the soul. Is not the 
soul a promise ? 

Is there a necessity of ultimate reliance on our 
own minds ? Faith in any truth is faith in the 
faculties which apprehend it. 

It is said we should have no faith in ourselves. 
But faith in future good is a faith in our capaci- 
ties, — that we can enjoy infinitely. 

He who has kindled in my heart an affection- 
ate earnestness has in so doing given a pledge 
of what he will accomplish. — Never despair un- 
der God ! 

To the benevolent and cheerful spirit all Na- 
ture breathes and speaks of love, of universal care, 
— whilst the selfish, irritable, and gloomy mind, 
accustomed to brood over partial evils, looks on 
it as a vast prison or storehouse of calamities. 

There should be faith in the possibility of im- 
pressing others with our own highest views. 

Faith and works. Does this answer to spirit 
and letter ? 

Who are we that we should measure out for 



WISDOM— KNO WLEDGE. 61 

ourselves ? We know not what is best. We de- 
serve nothing. This alone is best, that we leave 
all to Him who knows what is best. 

A great man is willing to live and die with a 
great cause in the confidence that it will essen- 
tially prevail. Such a mind hopes generously. 

The idea of manly fortitude sustains men in 
suffering. How much more the idea of the god- 
like ! 

A deep faith lies beneath sorrow. It does not 
lighten our outward burden, but gives strength, — 
better still. 






Wisdom — Knowledge. 
Knowledge is essential to freedom. 



The wise become so more by sympathy than 
study. 

All knowledge is a going forth, — an impar- 
tial judgment is a step. 

To use a thing well we must understand it. 

Knowledge is dearly bought if we sacrifice to 
it moral qualities ; if, in pursuit of it, the heart is 
chilled. 



62 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

Wisdom is not afraid to see evil in all its 
strength, for it looks far enough to discern the 
omnipotence of the antagonist power. 

There are impressions, feelings, convictions, 
which cannot be defended by particular argu- 
ments, but which are the results of a whole life, 
which represent the whole past experience, in 
which the whole nature is represented, — the 
reason, heart, conscience, imagination. Is not 
this Wisdom ? 

The mind darts beyond terms, rules, — and its 
flashes are often worth more than labored deduc- 
tions. 

Truth. 

Truth is correlative to being ; — knowledge, to 
reality. 

Infinite truth is before us. Why do we see 
only what we saw before ! 

Every new and noble truth, the moment it is 
regarded as an instrument of praise, becomes 
weakened, loses its hold on the soul ; for the 
frame of mind is low, not congenial with it. 

Truth from a devout voice should be heard, 



TRUTH. 63 

though truth only chooses or makes a sweet and 
gentle one. 

The habit of applying epithets loosely, of ap- 
plying to the whole what belongs to a part, is 
very ruinous to our moral sense as well as to 
the intellect. 

Unfaithfulness in one relation is unfaithfulness 
in more. 

Every feeling or state of mind which I wish to 
produce in others, I should express myself. 
When I wish to produce conviction of a truth, 
I should use the tone of firm conviction. When 
I wish to excite gratitude, — when I dwell on 
the loveliness of religion, let me speak as if I 
felt it. 

Truth drives those who are disposed to forsake 
it farther and farther. Error must be multiplied 
to preserve its consistency. The light must be 
shut out, for it discovers error. 

Government may forfeit its rights, but cannot 
absolve us from truth. 

Bad measures are submitted to when evaded 
by fraud. 

A man might pass for insane who should see 
things as they are. 



64 DR. CHANNIN&8 NOTE-BOOK. 

Inspiration. 
\/ A profound mind sees in a hint a clue to infi- 
nite discoveries. Every thought is as a seed, 
springing up at once into a rich harvest. 

When we see justice, truth, we but allow a 
passage to the beams of immense intelligence. 

Who has attained the true life and peace of 
the soul? — He into whose mind beams of the 
moral glory have shined. 

There are deeper intuitions than we can bring 
out distinctly to the consciousness. Childhood is 
under the sway of these. 

When we sympathize with a great mind — 
are we not inspired ? 



Thought — Reason. 

All men have power of thinking, — not all, 
power of thought. 

A thinker is at work all the time. 

We know but one unity, mind. This is one, 
however various the actions. 



THOUGHT —REASON. 65 

The greatest mind escapes the present, and 
uses past and future to lift itself above all time. 

Because we reason ill, are we incapable of rea- 
soning ? We detect the false reasoning by reason. 

We are not to conquer with intellect, any more 
than with arms. Conquest is not kindly, not 
friendly. 

The intellect is enthralled, darkened, by the 
influence, the authority, the prejudice of fellow 
beings. From these it needs to be saved. 

Doubt requires grounds as truly as belief. We 
must have reasons for doubting. Unreasonable 
doubt has no validity. Doubt must have the au- 
thority of reason. How then can we doubt its 
authority ? 

The outward system is one of fixed laws. The 
mind subjected to it is confined, enslaved. 

It is not a single thought or a thought subsist- 
ing by itself, which exerts such great power. 
Great thoughts are quickening, diffusive, gather 
others round them. 

I look on the modes of mechanism, more to 
admire the mind than the product. 



66 DR. CHANNING'S NOTE-BOOK. 

We can calculate mechanical force — not so 
the mind. What steam and water can move we 
know — but not what mind can move. 

The veracity of reason can neither be proved 
nor disproved, for we must use reason for the 
process. To doubt whether reason be credible, 
is it not equally unreasonable ? — for doubt is an 
act of reason. 

The very question why we trust our faculties 
is an appeal to them. 

Not a step can we take without them. 

Thus skepticism, if it require a reason, is self- 
destructive. 

Passion gives the unbounded to finite objects. 
Reason sees and bounds, and makes the finite 
yield to the infinite, — the temporary to the ever- 
lasting. 

We determine our modes of thinking in deter- 
mining our course of life. 

Every one knows that there are tones which, 
without reference to what is said, give an imme- 
diate impression that the speaker is deficient in 
intelligence — so there are tones of thought. 



CONVERSATION. 67 

Conversation. 

Studied conversation is most tedious and de- 
feats all its ends. 

We want in conversation that the heart should 
flow out. 

We cannot every moment pronounce a maxim. 

Converse so that you may draw largely upon 
other minds. 

Speak with the animation and elevation of one 
who hears the great theme. 

To establish a quick communication between 
the heart and countenance and voice is what we 
need. 

Too often the voice is mere air, charged with 
no soul, — a mechanical effect. 

He who governs his tongue is perfectly able to 
control all his passions. 

Never talk for show. This rule will almost cut 
up conversation by the root, — but no matter. 

The mightiest leaders are those who stir up 
other souls to the same deep original activity. 
Eloquence often injures by forcing, not leading, 
the hearer to reproduce. 



68 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

On common topics we should present the best 
thoughts which immediately occur to us, in the 
best language which immediately offers. Sim- 
plicity, sincerity, and truth will often be the only 
commendable qualities. We shall say nothing 
new or striking. 

On every topic we may express love to God 
and man. 

Our thanks are due to an orator, because he 
raises us above our ordinary perceptions and feel- 
ings — gives us to see with a new eye, to burn 
with a new fire. 

He who converses without the idea of display- 
ing himself has made great progress in humility. 

It should always be one end to benefit those 
we converse with. If we cannot give much, give 
little. 

Unless conversation be pleasing and active, 
people grow weary and love each other less for 
meeting. 

Conversation should flow from the heart, and 
the tone of the voice as well as the countenance 
should express affection. 



CONVERSATION. 69 

A Christian acquainted with God should talk 
as becomes the acquaintance. A man shows his 
society everywhere. 

It is very important that in conversation we 
have a pervading sense of the dignity of the be* 
ing with whom we converse. 

Conversation should not be rash ; but, intend 
ing uprightly, and feeling generously, we should 
speak boldly. Selfish timidity should not cramp 
the expression of our sentiments. We had better 
err sometimes than be perpetually cramped. A 
generous stream may overflow and injure, — this 
is better than stagnation. 

Will not new modes of activity offer them- 
selves to him who has new aims ? Will not a 
new soul breathe through his life ? 

How does soul flow into soul by speech, eye, 
etc. ! What a noble gift, the communication of 
soul ! 

Just in proportion as men advance in civiliza- 
tion they give more time to conversation. 

Let your life fortify your conversation. 

People converse with carelessness. They wish 



70 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

to say something, and this leads them to say any- 
thing. 

By aiming to become too useful we may become 
useless. Conversation is designed to benefit us, 
like air and water, insensibly. 

When we consider that the essence of human 
society is communication of thought, it will be 
hard to find a vice more hostile to society than 
falsehood, or the perversion and confusion of 
those signs by which men agree to communicate 
their thoughts. 

The art of being silent at proper times is worth 
acquiring. 

Conversation confirms the temper it expresses. 

Making fine sounds is the ruin of eloquence ! 

Our conversation should do good by its general 
spirit, not by its anxious confinement to the most 
edifying subject. 

Does not the pleasure of talking over old things 
arise from the rapid associations, the trackless 
glances of thought, — the flow of ideas expe- 
rienced in such a conversation ? 



WOMAN. 71 

The chief use of preaching is to convey living 
impressions. We want truths quickened in men's 
minds where they be dead. 

Take away all but that conversation in which 
the parties do not aim to make impressions fa- 
vorable to themselves, or to exert talents which 
will strike themselves and others, and how silent 
the world will be ! 



Woman. 
How many ways to the heart has woman ! 

Until we know woman, we know not strength 
of love. In this we have perhaps the best emblem 
of omnipotence as well as divine goodness. 

Woman is the dwelling place of religion, and 
/ communicates it to the young. 

Women soften our character and yet make us 
heroic. The same traits of character produce 
these different effects. 

It is said woman loves courage in man that he 
may protect her. No — she loves courage which 
makes sacrifices. She loves heroism. She loves 
protection, but from a hero's arm. It is the virtue, 
not her own safety, she loves. 



72 DR. CHANNING'S NOTE-BOOK. 

Man forsakes Christianity in his labors, — 
woman cherishes it in her solitudes and trials. 
Man lives by repelling, woman by enduring, — 
and here Christianity meets her. 

How wisely is it constituted that tender and 
gentle women shall be our earliest guides, — in- 
stilling their own spirit ! 

A family bound together in love must be most 
pleasing to God, — it must be the nursery of all 
good affections. 

Woman made for man, — beautiful, touching 
truth, — suited to an age of female degradation ! 



Children — Education. 

The birth of a child is one of the most impor- 
tant events in the universe. All other things are 
created to perish. The oak grows from the acorn 
to live many years, but it will decay. The mon- 
uments may survive centuries, but will moulder. 
Even the sun will fade. But the soul will live 
and will make everlasting progress. 

We ought to look on children with almost awe, 
— to feel their greatness. 

Every child has a right to means of spiritual 
life. 



CHILDREN - ED UCA TION. 73 

You would shudder at the thought of muti- 
lating your children, of wounding them, feeding 
them with poisonous herbs, exposing them to 
contagion, but there is something worse than all 
these. No wounds are like those of the soul. 

Set your child before you. Say, this child is 
born for eternity — he is capable of knowing 
God. 

It depends on you whether your connection 
with your children is a blessing or a curse. 

Fear makes children false. 

May not punishment supersede conscience ? 

Children are learning when in good society. 

Teach your children as they advance that you 
are fallible ; — encourage them to think for them- 
selves. 

Have reason to think that what you teach is 
true. 

How much dead matter is put into us — idle, 
lifeless knowledge which the soul never quickens, 
which comes and goes unchanged ! No vital 
union takes place between it and the mind. — Is 
this forming or loading the mind ? 



74 DR. CHANNING'S NOTE-BOOK. 

Consider not what the child does, but the 
motive, and strive to rectify this. Be not satis- 
fied with producing obedience by mere power. 
Ask — is the obedience from principle and feeling, 
which will cause its durableness and prepare him 
for self government ? Strive as much as possi- 
ble that he may govern himself. 

Is not the child the best judge of what its fac- 
ulties require ? — at least we should select from 
objects which it evidently takes pleasure in. 

Injudicious restraint is the parent of self-will. 

Great wisdom of God is seen in limiting pa- 
rental influence. The hope of the world is that 
parents cannot make their children all they wish. 

The child is born for love and with a thirst for it. 

How many children are injured by scolding, 
ill temper ! There is a beauty and contagion in 
sweetness of temper. 

When I play with a child, render it kind ser- 
vices, sensibly increase its pleasure, I confer a 
present good, and I do more ; — I help to form 
an affectionate spirit. 

Do not judge of a child's pleasures by your own 






MANNER. 75 

feelings. A disappointment trifling to ourselves 
may be an infinite evil to the little being whose 
whole soul is wrapped up in the pleasure removed. 
A child's little plan should be respected. 

How cautious should a parent be that his chil- 
dren never have reason to suspect or distrust 
him ! 

Pursue what is practicable. Do not try to 
make your child a wonder. 

To form children to kindness, let them see it. 

Education is as important to the child as cul- 
ture to earth. You are too wise to expect crops 
without planting ; — it is just as rational to expect 
improvement without education. 

Home, — the nursery of the Infinite. 

Youth has more positive enjoyment and less 
happiness than any period of life. It is restless, 
uneasy, expecting everything and disappointed 
continually. , 

Manner. 
Manner should be a sign of ideas. 

Perfect self-possession, — arising not from high 



76 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

opinion of ourselves, but from moral superiority 
to opinions, — this is the true manner. This is 
carrying reverence for virtue into common move- 
ments. 

No error in manner is so bad as having too 
much manner, or as mannerism, — an appear- 
ance of having studied manner, of thinking about 
it, of being full of ourselves. Complete absorp- 
tion in our subject is the perfection of manner ! 

A free, bold manner, the expression of our 
strong convictions, an earnest activity, coming 
out naturally and with generous confidence in 
truth, — how graceful and noble are these ! 

The soul should speak in countenance and 
motions. This it is which impresses. We have 
aimed in vain to substitute excellence of compo- 
sition for manner. 

Some people are polite in manner, but they let 
you see that they know it. They think more of 
themselves than of you in paying you respect. 

Mildness of manner is indispensable, but our 
sentiments should be expressed just as they are. 

Repose is the perfect balance of all the pow- 
ers. 



HABIT — ART-- GENIUS — IDEALS. 77 

There is never so much novelty as when the 
new is seen in the old. 



Habit. 
The customary passes for the necessary. 

Habit not merely confirms but freezes what we 
have gained. It gives a dead stability. 

If in doing an act we saw a chain winding 
round our bodies we should be alarmed. But 
habit binds chains by every deed. 

Subtle habits of thought are the most danger- 
ous. How the i" pervades all things ! 

Habit is the common principle of consistency. 
Is there not a nobler one, — the principle of 
simple reverence to truth and duty without being 
anxious to be consistent ? 

He who breathes free air enjoys more than in 
perfumed chambers, — so he who drinks water, 
— and the poor man may see God. 

Art — Genius — Ideals. 
Art is a spiritual triumph. 



78 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

The poet who sees and feels life's development 
has higher knowledge than the philosopher. 

We say — the generations pass, but the works 
survive. No, — the genius of Michael Angelo is 
more immortal than St. Peter's. 

That is a work of genius which partakes of 
the eternal and unchanging, which is not local 
or temporary but becomes the principle, the key, 
the illumination, the soul of the mutable and 
passing events, which arrests us, which associates 
itself with all we see, and is confirmed by the 
development of time and our own nature. — 
Shakespeare is as a prophet whose writings are 
fulfilled by all which takes place. 

The poet has the perfect in view even in delin- 
eating the evil. — The highest, purest form of a 
quality, the most distinct embodying of it, is his 
end. 

In Drama it is the greatness of the soul in its 
agony which interests us, — a mighty feeling, a 
depth of woes laid open. 

Statues, pictures, — breathing a celestial Love 
and Power, — are not these of use to reveal to 
men the divine glory which is to be sought and 
loved ? 



ART — GEN J US — IDEALS. 79 

Genius is seen not so much in paradox, as in 
its living, renovating, freshening conception of a 
plain truth. 

The book gives the ideal. But to get the ideal 
from actual life is the great thing. 

The great advantage of art is that it saves la- 
bor. This we need. Human life is too much 
spent in toil. 

Men of active business and social qualities 
escape from reveries. Perhaps the possession 
S of the mind by external things is no great advan- 
tage. Practical men, — never led astray by im- 
agination, — are they the most valuable ? 

Is it not possible to be an impersonation of the 
highest principles, — to realize our high concep- 
tions, — to live in the wqrld of Ideas, and to 
show that they are practicable ? 

For how little do most of us live ! How 
low the ambition, — to interest and please a so- 
ciety ! Is life to pass away without leaving any 
effect ? 

We must have an end beyond the present 
work, — this is rising above an occupation, in a 
just sense. 



80 DR. CHANMNG'S NOTE-BOOK. 

Let not fame be thought of. Only propose a 
lofty end and be prodigal of self, of reputation, 
in pursuing it. 

The abundance of poetry now may show rather 
the greatness of demand than the delicacy of the 
prevalent taste. We consume too much to be 
nice. 

Life. 

We must not waste life in devising means. It 
is better to plan less and do more. 

Life is a journey, and he who has least of a 
load to carry travels fastest and most happily. 

Life should be held loosely, — in readiness to 
be yielded up with a martyr's spirit. 

Life is a fragment, a moment between two 
eternities, influenced by all that has preceded, 
and to influence all that follows. The only way 
to illumine it is by extent of view. 

Life is a bringing out of the infinite depths of 
the soul. — That which now keeps us down shall 
lift us up. 

The evil of life consists not so much in doing 
bad things as in being without ends, — acting 
from impulse and acting from others' minds. 



DEATH. 81 

The mysterious life is not that which is afflict- 
ed — etc. — but the prosperous, monotonous, self- 
indulgent, in which nothing generous is awak- 
ened. 

May we feel that no life is short, which has 
fulfilled the end of life. 

When we give ourselves to mutable things, we 
become parts of the material system, — slaves, 
subject to outward laws. 

To live, — to have spiritual force, is the grand 
thing ! 

May the false colors fade from life, — and at 
the same time may we not forget the value of 
life, but be grateful for it, and see in it a school 
for an endless being. 

Is not the whole of life to be a sacrifice ? Even 
its pleasures, relaxations, may fit us to toil, suffer, 
and die for man. 



Death. 

Shall we weep for those who have done weep- 
ing! 

We give death its terrors. The soul does not 
die. What was it we loved in our friend ? On 



82 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

this depends whether death shall be an evil or 
good. 

We rejoice in the belief that there is no im- 
passable gulf between us and those who have 
gone before. 

We rejoice that the grave has become a place 
of rest — death a passage to immortality. 

May we think of death not to sadden life, — 
but to learn the true glory of life. 

Suffer us not to love this life as our only exist- 
ence, as if nothing were beyond it. 
May death spiritualize our views. 

Death teaches that our friends belong to a 
higher being. — Our appropriating spirit is re- 
buked. 

We suffer through the finite. — Is it that we 
may look to the Infinite ? 

Peace. 
Peace is the fairest form of happiness. 

Our office is to be peacemakers, which we are 
to fulfil by breathing love. 



JO Y - HAPPINESS. 83 

There is indeed a peace on earth, — but it is 
not the peace of inaction, of prosperity. It is 
the peace of him who accepts the conditions on 
which life is given, — who girds himself for the 
conflict, — who has a clear, strong faith that con- 
flict is wisely ordered, and who has an earnest, in 
the energy it calls forth, of the perfection of his 
soul and the triumph of a higher world. 

There is no peace but in subduing the enemies 
within the soul. Hostile principles involve War. 
We must subject the soul to sweet concord. 

Some persons are contented and easy from the 
extreme simplicity of their desires. — They are 
satisfied with little and with what is easily at- 
tained because other good excites no desire. 

This is only insensibility : — it approaches the 
peace of a vegetable, — not of God who is infinite 
desire. 

Joy — Happiness. 

Enjoyment is good to him who looks above it. 

This thirst for happiness, — is it not a promise 
of full streams ? 

Has a man a right to throw away his own hap- 
piness any more than that of another ? 

Pleasure may perfect us as truly as prayer. 



84 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

Moderation in pleasure, or absence of all de- 
pendence on it, is essential. 

Everything depends upon the habitual exercise 
of the mind on a higher order of good. We 
cannot rise from a life steeped in pleasure, to 
the conception of that good which annihilates 
pleasure. 

There is a joy which adorns life, — the over- 
flowing of delight in beauty, in intellectual pow- 
er, in those we love. 

There is no religion in being unhappy. 

Happiness is not a gift, but an object to be 
secured. Are we not then to study it ? Happi- 
ness is not to be advanced by anxiety about it. 
A spirit of confidence seems necessary to it. We 
are to watch over it by a kind of neglect. 

Some, having found the Supreme Good and, in 
it, an inexhaustible fountain, living waters, are 
relieved from all anxieties, are superior to evils, 
and have all their capacities of pleasure quick- 
ened. — He who has no fear but of doing un- 
worthily is in the true way to light heartedness. 

We begin by expecting happiness from some- 
thing outward. This is the delusion of childhood 
and of the infancy of human races. The progress 



JO Y— HAPPINESS. 85 

of the mind consists in nothing so much as in the 
development of the consciousness that happiness 
has its seat and foundation within. Till we learn 
this we are ignorant indeed. 

Joy comes from having great interests, not 
from idleness, — from great affections, not from 
selfishness, — from self-sacrifice, for this knits 
souls, — from great hopes. 

Joy belongs to health of souls, and to health 
of body. 

Some minds are light by the absence of all 
great thoughts and interests. They think only 
of trifles. Nothing weighs upon them. 

Others are light through their own elasticity, 
energy, — and never lighter than when pressure 
calls for elasticity. This is the true light heart- 
edness. 

Ought we always to be meditating on our own 
and others' sins, — to be solemn? Is there not 
something strained and suspicious in that virtue 
which renounces the ordinary pleasures of life ? 

Enjoyment through moral energy, through vol- 
untary exclusion of depressing thoughts, through 
grateful opening of the mind to good, through 
desire to shed joy around us, is noble, and such 
is meant to be the joy of life. 



86 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

Happiness, meaning a deep, full, affectionate 
joy, is a most lovely thing. 

Oh! the joy of enjoying, with the reflection 
that God and all good beings approve and par- 
take our joy ! 



Sorrow — Pain. 

Sorrow has its dignity. The individual forgets 
himself in his interest in another. — It is a sign 
of the extension of our being. 

Every life has some severe pain. In such 
events the soul aches through and through. The 
arrow pierces it. Its whole nature is suffering. 

Mere suffering will not do us good. — Mere 
tears will not wash a living sin. The very se- 
verity of suffering leaves us harder, — a solemn 
thought. We may grow insensible. 

The mass of men are content with escaping 
pain, — and with animal good. How they ac- 
quiesce in death ! 

Pain, whether in this or the next world, is a 
low, selfish motive. Will not the character built 
on this motive partake throughout of its poverty ? 

We cannot, if we would, benefit others by per- 






DESTINY — MATTER— SPIRIT. 87 

petual pain, hardship. We cannot endure it : — 
our nature forbids ! God is not willing. 

Pain is nothing if not wrongfully inflicted, — 
if it does not shock our moral sense. 



Destiny. 
Our steps tend somewhere. 

We move along the earth-path and do not feel 
it ; so every moment we change our position in 
life, yet seem to remain in the same circum- 
stances. 

In vain would human weakness throw off the 
iron necessity which is laid on it. Suffer we 
must. Fight we must, — or sink and perish. 

A man thirsts for opportunities of knowledge 
— which are withheld. Nature denies him an 
eye to see with. — Poverty dooms him to toil. 

Matter — Spirit. 

We are bound by chains of matter. Are we 
not to burst these ? 

We are to escape the limits of space and time. 
What is most noble is not related to them. 
Truth is eternal and universal. 



88 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

A spiritual body raised in power is one which 
the soul informs. A glorified body is one through 
which the soul radiates, — which it uses, — which 
in no measure governs it. 

Will the wicked be placed under the power of 
matter, — a hard tyranny, self chosen ? Is it 
through moral conquest that we are to rise above 
the laws of matter ? May the soul take the spir- 
itual body out of these just as life now suspends 
chemical laws ? 

We are related to the Universe by thought, 
which needs this boundless whole, and delights 
in discovering Unity ; — by love, sympathy, rev- 
erence, by will, energy, power, which are awak- 
ened by the consciousness of vast connection and 
design. 

All nature has sprung from spirit, — is an ex- 
pression of it, — has spiritual connections. Is the 
natural then to be opposed to the supernatural ? 



The Soul. 
A great thing to have a soul in health ! 

The body is to die, and then the spirit is free. 
Are we not in this sense to die daily, — to liber- 
ate the spirit from the body ? 



TEE SOUL. 89 

All weakness is unspiritual ; — all emotions 
which master us are such. Delicacy is not debil- 
ity : it shrinks from the gross, not from the strong. 

May we not come to feel sickness, darkness, 
coldness of the soul, as truly as of the body ; to 
know when we are in the light, when the sun 
shines upon us, and when we are in darkness ? 

The spiritual in common life, — this is the 
great discovery. 

Wealth may come to us by inheritance or 
chance, — not so inward life. We may sustain 
the body with little thought, — but not so the 
spiritual life. 

We idolize wealth, for we know not' how great 
the soul is. We have nothing with which to 
compare it. 

Looking into our souls — seeing what is health, 
what harmony, what the disorder of sin — is a 
great means of awakening poiver. 

Cannot the soul endure as much for duty as for 
honor, or through pride ? 

Christ commanded. Does not the soul too 
command all men to be just and holy ? 



90 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

Is the soul as much wounded by sin among the 
ignorant as among the enlightened ? 

The soul can and must do nothing which de- 
grades or stains it. 

Be just to the soul. Study it. Grow more 
conscious of its higher action. 

To look into the particular soul is the great 
sagacity. 

A great thought strikes through the soul, — 
dissolves old connections, establishes new, revo- 
lutionizes the mind. 

We are spirits too. To feel this is to act in 
harmony with spiritual worship. 

Always in proposing a truth, aim at its reach- 
ing men's souls and working mightily. 

There is one great office in life, — that of Soul 
Quickener. 

Passiveness is the death of the soul. Is any 
evil so great as this ! 

The being we are nearest, we know the least 
of. We are ignorant of what is within. 



ASPIRATION — PRA YER. 9 1 

To form a fine statue from the stone is nothing 
compared with bringing out beauty, proportion, 
from the soul. 

Some flowers open at sunset and close at sun- 
rise. 

So some souls bloom unseen. 

The multitude, sunk in matter, cannot judge 
the spiritual man. He is not to expect any jus- 
tice from them. They know nothing of whence 
or for what he lives. 

A godly jealousy over our own spirits, regarded 
as of divine origin, belongs to us, and we must 
not so give them away to others as to narrow or 
cast them down. 

I believe we have a power over the soul by 
which we can take it in a great degree out of the 
power of external things. 

We belong not to this world only, — to all 
worlds. We have connection with all spirits. 
When the soul is pierced by the loss of one friend, 
does not our vast connection comfort us ? 



Aspiration — Prayer. 
Looking up is our strength. 



92 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

To look far forward we must gain an emi- 
nence. 

And now that Thou art doing so much for 
our happiness, may we not betray it. 

We must not expect to be understood if we 
soar above the world. 

Suffer us not after so many sicknesses, changes, 
and death of friends, to live heedlessly. 

Seek always in the Universe Unity, harmony ', 
— and, in these, God. 

Give us simplicity, godly sincerity ; teach us to 
avoid false pretences and to be true to our con- 
victions. 

Whilst friends live may they show us, in all 
that is good, Thy goodness : when they die, may 
they carry us to Thee. 

From the loss of our friends teach us how to 
enjoy and improve those who remain. 

Let it be our happiness this day to add to the 
happiness of those around, to comfort some sor- 
row, to relieve some want, to add some strength 
to our neighbor's virtue. 



GOD — RELIGION. 93 

Let the employment of this day leave no sorrow, 
no remembrance of wrong, at night, but may it 
be holy and profitable, blessed and innocent. 

High aims, ends ! Nothing low, selfish, — 
nothing tame, mechanical, — no bending to low 
standards. — Bringing the mind into contact with 
high, generous, pure, holy spirits, — not to yield 
to them, but to be kindled by them. 

A great Idea lifts us above the power of evil. 
We can suffer for it. It is something impersonal. 

A habit of prayer becomes mere formality un- 
less we begin with the heart. 

Are we to pray that God will make us holy by 
his immediate agency, any more than that he 
will make us rich ? 



God — Religion. 

Nothing is supernatural but the divine. God 
is above nature. He is the supernatural. 

God loved the world, — and how did he exer- 
cise that love ; — in sending his son to fill it with 
love. 

God is the happiest being in the universe. Can 
we not become happy by sympathy ? 



94 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

Not he who talks most learnedly of God feels 
most his presence and perfection. 

God thinks of all beings. — So should we. 

We would see more of God because what we 
now see is so glorious ! 

He who studies nature and denies God is as a 
man who reads a book and denies that it had an 
author. 

I believe in God : — with this conviction I go 
abroad and meet him everywhere. 

Man would confine Thee to his church, — 
would subject Thee to his interests. "We adore 
Thee as Infinite. 

Many traverse Heaven without meeting God 
there ! 

The soul is a chaos, without form and void — 
dark. God, — truth, — is the light, is the brood- 
ing spirit. The elements obey new affinities and 
arrange themselves into harmony, beauty. 

It is the glory of God that he answers to the 
love of Infinity in the soul. 



GOD — RELIGION. 95 

God speaks to us through the holy souls in 
which he dwells. Our sympathy with them is 
sympathy with God. 

God is an ever developing Thought, the living 
water in us. 

I am a child of God. I hear him described in 
language which shocks me. I hear acts ascribed 
to him which would disgrace a human sovereign, 
— acts unequalled in the record of tyranny. 
Shall I feel nothing ? 

I am sure Christianity will endure because it 
is founded on man's nature, — answers to his 
deepest wants, — his essential and noblest wants. 

I do not say that what we now call Christian- 
ity is to live forever. I think not — I hope not. 
Christianity is obscured, — almost lost. 

What a bond a great truth is ! This was the 
glory of Christianity. It substituted a spiritual 
for an outward bond. 

Men have labored for churches more than for 



Religion. 



The church is meant to make the "free spirit, 
to aid its flight to God, not to subject it to man. 
We have no forms in domestic life. Friend- 



96 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

ship has none. Is not religion more free ? The 
heart has its own mode of utterance, free, spon- 
taneous. The soul is too great for forms : to 
bring it out is the end of churches : — machinery- 
keeps it in. 

Where now is the strength of the Catholic 
Church? 

The name of Fenelon is a shield for his whole 
church. The virtue of that single soul is more 
than hosts. 

We live in sight of religion as men do of the 
heavens or of stupendous mountains. An ad- 
mirer of these, — a man who lives to them, may 
awaken our sensibility to them. 

It is as incongruous to profess religion as to 
profess benevolence. 

The adoration of goodness, — this is religion. 

Sin is not a distinct subsistence. It is the 
mind affected in a particular way. 

The right to which we are bound is not insu- 
lated, but connected and one with the infinite rec- 
titude, and with all the virtue of all being. In 
following it we promote the health of the uni- 
verse. 






GOD — RELIGION, 97 

What ! are the great fundamental truths of re- 
ligion so obscure that intelligent men miss them ! 

What are called saints are not the most esti- 
mable. 

The world is so full of wonder that the won- 
derfulness of a future life is no argument against 
it. 

Our religion is laid in a corner. We think it 
much if a man, on any occasion, acknowledge it. 
Instead of appearing like the life it only discloses 
itself occasionally. 

Is not the spirit bound down by the world in 
which we live ? How we speak and act with ref- 
erence to what is around us ! So did not Christ. 
He gave out a nobler mind. 

The anchorite, rejecting the outward for a 
dream of mysticism, erred. It must be rejected 
for true greatness, sanctity, — for distinct per- 
fection. 

True piety does not play the hero, — does not 
walk with solemn strides, — does not feel itself 
too great or good for any of the irreproachable 
pleasures of life. True greatness is akin to hap- 
piness and unlocks the springs of joy. 



98 DR. CRANNING'S NOTE -BOOK. 

The right, beautiful, happy, true. — Are not all 
these one, — or different aspects of one reality ? 

Holiness is the soul powerful over the senses, 
— free, unslaved by sense, clear to see the Di- 
vine, powerful to forsake all for it. 

In serving each, we serve all, and ourselves 
as bound up with the living whole. 

We see a special Providence in means coming 
unexpectedly, — in unexplained coincidences. If 
there be a miracle, why are means used ? If we 
may pray for one miracle, why not for another ? 
If for a miraculous cure, why not for patriarchal 
longevity ? What bounds can be set ? 

To ask for what we want is no virtue. We 
shrink from asking men, and the less we ask, the 
better. — Prayer regarded as a mere expression 
of desire has no worth. 

A universe requiring endless pain for its secu- 
rity ! Is not this blasphemy against its author and 
against holy spirits ? 

Infinite, endless punishment would make hell 
the most interesting spot in the universe. All 
the sympathies of Heaven would be turned 
towards it. 



SENSATION. 99 

Sensation. 

Sensation is the first stage of the mind's devel- 
opment, the first affection of the soul, the begin- 
ning of our inward life. 

The spirit is unfolded by its connection with 
the body. It is deeply indebted to the material 
organism with which it is allied. 

Sound as we hear it from the great masters 
of music, as it comes to us charged with the 
thoughts and feelings of noble souls, does not 
seem to us unfit for Heaven ; and the beautiful 
lights which are spread over creation, who of us 
does not hope to enjoy them forever ? 

It is not a nerve which sees or hears. It is I 
who see and hear. Sight and hearing are capaci- 
ties of my soul. 

We place the smell of the rose in the flower 
as its permanent abode. We place heat in the 
fire and sound in the harp, and suppose them to 
issue from these seats, and penetrate us through 
our organs. But in all this we cheat ourselves. 
The heat, the fragrance, the sound are in our- 
selves, are simply affections of the mind. The 
Aeolian harp simply vibrates, — the melancholy 
sound, which seems to swell from the instrument, 
belongs only to our own breast. 



100 DR. CHANNING'S NOTE-BOOK. 

Sensation belongs to the mind as truly as the 
most abstract thoughts and refined affections. 

We are apt to speak of sensations as flowing 
in upon us from the outward world. The truth 
is that they flow from us and furnish the Uni- 
verse in its ever-varying robes. 

We create what we delight in, — the soul trans- 
mutes the colorless, silent, cheerless earth into a 
paradise. 

Nature, by impulses on the organs of sense, 
invites the mind to pour forth her boundless 
treasures, — and obedient to the summons the 
mighty enchantress sheds over heaven and earth, 
spring and autumn, cloud and ocean, a profusion 
of beauty which she cannot herself comprehend. 

The sensualist and the spiritualist may both 
lay down their arms and cease their useless war- 
fare. If they come to understand one another, 
they will find that they differ in little or nothing. 

No matter how an idea or mental affection 
springs up. — I can conceive of myself as so con- 
stituted that on the first impulse of light on the 
retina an intuition of God would have sprung up 
in my mind. With the first vibration of air on 
the ear, the idea of duty might have dawned on 
me. These grand convictions would have lost 
nothing of their grandeur in consequence of these 






SENSATION. 101 

occasions of their appearance in my mind. — 
Ideas and feelings are to be estimated not by 
their mode of birth, but by their nature, and their 
correspondence to reality. 

The soul is an unbounded force, seeking per- 
petual expansion, and if left to itself, it would 
break out into a chaos of sensation, thought, af- 
fection and will. It needs restraints to determine 
the order of its development, and to give it the 
possibility of moral self-control. The body, I 
apprehend, is ordained by God as this restraining, 
regulating power. 

By union with the body the soul's activity is 
not created, but confined. The body is a prison, 
as the instinctive wisdom of all ages has taught, 
curbing the soul's action, except in particular 
directions and under particular conditions. 

Instead of regarding sight and hearing as pro- 
ductions of the optic and auditory nerves, it may 
be proper to say that we are now confined to see 
and hear by these organs only. 

It is astonishing how little we owe to the senses 
of what we trace to them. The world, as first 
revealed by them, is almost wholly different from 
the world we daily see. 

That the soul is capable of other sensations be- 
sides those we experience, I cannot doubt ; that 



102 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

only five classes of sensations exist in the universe 
is most unlikely. The spirit is probably sus- 
ceptible of an infinity of sensations as well as of 
thoughts. 

Pleasure and pain are the earliest links of 
thought. Through these the soul first discovers 
infinity. In childhood it grasps a good beyond 
what it finds. A secret restlessness and discon- 
tent disturb the morning of life. 

The indications of a vast good mix with our 
earliest pursuits. 

Pleasure and pain are also the first occasion of 
the action of the moral nature. — Through them 
the great struggle between desire and duty com- 
mences. Our moral history dates from their 
collision with our sense of right. 

In this view what an important place they hold 
in the spirit's development ! — Sensation, — the 
first occasion of moral energy and moral triumph ! 

There is no greater sign that the whole of life 
is our infancy than the fact that physical pain 
and pleasure keep us so much in motion, and are 
designed to place us under higher excitements, to 
sever the will from desire, to unite it with ra- 
tional and moral impulses. 

This is the soul's manhood, — but as yet how 
slowly have men made this progress ! 



TEE I OR SELF. 103 

Musical sounds call forth emotions within us 
which we experience from no other cause. 

They seem to wind their way into depths of 
our nature which nothing else can visit. — Not 
only sounds, but certain combinations of color 
have a sentiment, if I may so say, and speak to 
the soul. There is something spiritual, too, in 
certain odors, — in the fragrance of the fields 
and flowers. 

Even the lowest of all our sensations, that of 
taste, will, I believe, in a better age, when the 
animal nature is subjected, rise into a degree of 
dignity. 

The blue sky, the green fields, the hue and 
fragrance of flowers, the splendor of the rising 
and setting sun, and of the stars — how deeply 
do they work in the wise and pure soul ! 

What springs of thought and emotion do they 
unfold, — and how much of the happiness of the 
happiest may be traced to these influences ! 

The eye and the ear may become to us almost 
perpetual inlets of purifying pleasure, and the 
senses which at first chained us to this world may 
unlock with magical art infinite prospects beyond 
the world. 

The I or Self. 

Every man knows what he means when he 
says "I" "myself" — he knows nothing else so 



104 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

well. Words cannot help him. The " I " can- 
not be analyzed. There is nothing more simple 
into which it can be resolved. 

Consciousness is like life, — that which we all 
feel, which is infinite reality, — and which eludes 
our grasp and seems to vanish into a word, when 
we strive to define it. 

Life is revealed as something permanent. 
Our thoughts and sensations indeed are changing, 
and often fleet through the mind with the speed 
of lightning. But the " I " is the same. The 
joys, sorrows, hopes, fears, purposes, efforts of 
the past day or year may have gone never to 
return, may have perished forever, but I, who 
joyed and sorrowed, exist to-day, am one and the 
same as yesterday. 

It is this permanence of the I, which gives 
unity to our shifting lives, which binds into one 
our vast and varied experience, on which respon- 
sibility is founded, which puts us in possession of 
the past and the future, and is the condition of 
endless progress. 

Perception. 

The ends which the mind proposes determine 
the direction of its perceiving power. The phi- 
losopher, having for his end that great spiritual 



PERCEPTION. 105 

Idea, Truth, subjects the material world to the 
keenest inspection, and detects in its phenomena 
the signs of unseen laws, and makes it a new 
world to his age by the truths which he associates 
with it. 

So the artist, with the idea of Beauty to inspire 
and guide him, analyzes and groups anew the 
prospect which is a blank or confused, unmeaning 
expanse to a common spectator, and lives in the 
midst of an order and glory which his own spirit 
creates. 

How much do we owe to this power of ex- 
ternal perception ! We are introduced to a mag- 
nificent inheritance. The universe becomes our 
property. The sublime heavens are our own. A 
kind of omnipresence is bestowed on us. We 
transport ourselves to other worlds. 

From scattered observations we construct the 
solar system, and get glimpses of the order of 
universal nature. 

How grand, how awful, is this creation of God ! 

But there is something grander, and that is the 
spirit which can comprehend it, which can con- 
struct, unfold within itself, the Idea, the Image, 
of this boundless whole. 

It must not be supposed that it is the grandeur 
of the Universe which makes the soul great. — 
This would be lost on us, were there not an in- 
ward grandeur corresponding to the outward. 



106 DR. CHANNIN&8 NOTE-BOOK. 

A noble school is profitable only to noble spirits. 
The learner must have something great in order 
to receive great lessons. 

The universe is to us what we make it. 

It is the soul which aggrandizes nature. 

Reflection. 

Most men for the want of turning the mind on 
itself live in great ignorance of its common oper- 
ations. 

They understand the motions of objects 
around much more than the movements of their 
own souls. 

The inward world is a dark, confused, ever 
tossing ocean, and, through the obscurity and 
confusion under which the mind appears to itself, 
it is able not only to live in self-ignorance, but 
to practise imposition on itself, — hide its true 
motives from its own eye, — to ascribe to itself 
such as do not exist. 

What we call discoveries are generally expan- 
sions of confused images or thoughts which have 
long pre-existed in the mind. 

Every man has within him treasures of wisdom 
which he does not suspect, — precious ore imbed- 
ded in crude thoughts. His power of inward per- 






REFLECTION. 107 

ception, like the infant's eye, glances over the sur- 
face. What is passing within himself he does not 
know. The volcano of passion is perceived at 
moments of eruption, but its deep workings are 
unseen. 

We look down into the abysses of the soul 
with feelings of awe, resembling what are expe- 
rienced on the brink of a precipice, whence the 
descending gaze sees at vast distances no bottom 
but a silent ocean of cloud. 

This power of introspection is of inexpressible 
dignity. By this we become acquainted with 
spiritual existence, — we enter the spiritual wo ride 

This glorious universe, of which material nature 
is the dim expression and semblance, is first re- 
vealed to us in our spirit. We enter it through 
the portal of our own soul. Even God is mani- 
fested within us. — The infinite Mind has im- 
pressed his image on ours, and through this alone 
we know him. 

Intelligence, wisdom, power, love, joy, beauty, 
— these are intelligible to us through the dawn- 
ing within ourselves. 

By looking within, we find in the confused 
mass of our thoughts the elements of the grand 
thoughts of God. 

It is wonderful that such a power as this does 
not impress us by its grandeur. 



108 DR. CHANNIN&S NOTE-BOOK. 

One would think that the temptation to plunge 
into this invisible world, and forget what sur- 
rounds us, would act on some minds at least with 
irresistible power. But such is not our destiny, 
and this spiritual asceticism would defeat itself. 
The mind by living within and watching itself 
perpetually would arrest its own flight and free 
expansion. Men, for want of reflection, too often 
waste life, and turn it not only to unprofitableness, 
but to bitterness. 



Conception. 

The life which turns all to nourishment is the 
soul's, and through this alone outward things do 
us good. 

There is an immense difference in the power 
of conception in different individuals. Some 
men's minds are picture galleries, filled with im- 
ages of what they have seen, heard, etc. — The 
past springs up to them in the vivid colors of 
reality. 

They are painting all their lives. 

Relation. 

Our knowledge of God, man, the universe, may 
be reduced very much to relations. 

If God existed in utter, necessary disconnection 



MEMORY. 109 

from all other beings, where would be his omnip- 
otence, omniscience, infinite love and impartial 
justice ? 

Strip man of his relations, and what do we 
leave of him ? He has no private, no public his- 
tory — no purpose — no progress — no good. 

The mind can divide itself among many objects 
and its range of simultaneous thought continually 
increases, and in this we have a pledge of the 
vast domain to which thought is to extend itself 
in the progress of our existence. 

The world stripped of its relations or mani- 
fested to us only in disconnected fragments would 
be stripped of all its glory. All beauty consists 
in proportion, harmony, — that is, it is in rela- 
tion, so that the charm is derived from within. 
The world is a manifestation of God, is a sphere 
of human action, is a source of wisdom, only so 
far as its relations are discovered, — that is, so 
far as the mind invests it with its own treasures. 



Memory. 

Time is first revealed to us as the past. The 
faculty which recognizes this begins its action in 
the earliest stages of our being. We wake up 
and find ourselves plunged in this mysterious 
stream, always flowing, never beginning, never 
ending, and bearing us onward to unknown 
I worlds. 



110 DR. CHANN1N&S NOTE-BOOK. 

The idea of time to which memory introduces 
us is one sign of the greatness of the mind. 

It stretches out into the infinite. It awakens 
our interest in all which has been, and all which 
is to be. 

By a few hints which geology furnishes, we go 
back thousands of centuries, while hope and fear 
rush into an endless future. 

Nothing which has entered into our experience 
is ever lost. 

The mind has infinite stores beneath its present 
consciousness. 

The past is acting on us by a silent influence. 

There is a far deeper life and motion within 
us than we can distinctly comprehend. The past 
is living in us when we think it dead. 

In the future life, the mighty volume is to be 
opened, and we shall derive ever-growing wisdom 
from the dim, faded experience of the passing 
day. 



MEMOIR OF 

William Henry Channing. 

BY 

OCTAVIUS BROOKS FROTHINGHAM, 

AUTHOR OP " GEORGE RIPLEY," " TRANSCENDENTALISM IN NEW ENG- 
LAND, " ETC. 

With a fine Portrait. Crown 8vo, gilt top, $2.00. 

I. The Age and its Child. II. The Idyll of Boyhood. 
III. Preparation for the Ministry. IV. First Experi- 
ments — The Dark Valley — Emergence. V. Europe. 
VI. Ministry at Large in New York. VII. Cincinnati. 
VIII. The Prophet of the Soul. IX. The Christian 
Socialist. X. The Religious Union of Associationists. 
XI. Rochester. XII. Liverpool. XIII. Washington; 
War. XIV. England Again. XV. The American. 
XVI. The Preacher. XVII. The Man of Letters. 
XVIII. The Person. 

Mr. Frothingham has performed his work with conscientious 
fidelity. Unlike most biographers, he gives us no autobiography. 
We suppose that, with the mutual respect and love which could 
not but exist between him and Mr. Channing, there were differ- 
ences in opinion and feeling ; but of these the memoir bears no 
trace. Had it been written by a spiritual twin brother, it could not 
have presented a life picture more evidently genuine and authentic. 
— Christian Union (New York). 

In the biography before us ... we have the story of a brave, 
enthusiastic, sincere, and thoroughly good man, a scholar, preacher, 
and philanthropist, a thinker and a doer, a helper if not a leader, 
told by one whose facile pen can retouch with new beauty the most 
attractive subject, as well as draw lines of light about the most ap- 
parently prosaic. — The Index (Boston). 

Mr. Frothingham's name on the title page of the present volume 
is warrant for a conscientious study of Channing's life. The style 
is terse and epigrammatic at times, and thoroughly sympathetic 
with the subject of the memoir ; while Mr Frothingham's choice 
of material used in giving what is needed to be known of the la- 
mented Channing is beyond all praise. — Providence Journal. 



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